Film
Film: Embrace of the Serpent/El abrazo de la serpiente
NHCC-Newsletter-November-2-307 pm Filmed almost entirely in black and white in the Amazon jungle, Embrace of the Serpent focuses on the relationship between an Amazonian shaman and two Western scientists over the course of 40 years, and was inspired by the travel journals, written decades apart, of two explorers who traveled through the Colombian Amazon during the last century in search of a sacred and difficult-to-find psychedelic plant. In respecting spirituality of place and rules of nature handed down through centuries, it attains, in addition to its extraordinary (more...)
Film: Con el viento/Facing the Wind
NHCC-Newsletter-November-2-307 pm Con el viento honors the filmmaker’s grandparents’ village, and the disappearance of its culture with their passing, while examining the issue of uprooting in all its complexity. After 20 years away in Buenos Aires, Mónica, a dancer and choreographer, receives a call that her father is dying and must return to the remote village in Burgos, Spain, where she was born. When she arrives, her father has already passed away and her mother asks her to stay and help her sell the family home. As (more...)
Film: Leona
NHCC-Newsletter-November-2-307 pm A universal tale of star-crossed lovers is given a uniquely Mexican twist in writer-director Isaac Cherem’s debut film. Ariela, an independently-minded young artist living with her Syrian-Jewish family in a cloistered Jewish neighborhood in Mexico City, finds herself torn between her family and a forbidden romance with a non-Jewish writer, who shows her a world of possibilities beyond her sheltered life. As their feelings deepen, Ariela must negotiate the labyrinth of familial pressure, religious values and traditions, and her own burgeoning sentiment, finding that there (more...)
Film: ¡Las Sandinistas!
NHCC-Newsletter-November-2-307 pm ¡Las Sandinistas! documents a watershed moment in history, when a group of Nicaraguan women shattered barriers to lead rebel troops in battle and reshape their country with landmark social reforms during the 1979 Sandinista Revolution and the ensuing U.S.-backed Contra War, only to face renewed marginalization by their male peers once the wars ended. The film centers on the personal stories of Dora María Téllez, the young medical student who became a key Sandinista general, and four of her revolutionary allies. Now, amid staggering levels (more...)
Film: The Mamboniks
NHCC-Newsletter-November-2-302 pm Lox and bagels meet salsa and congos in Peabody Award winner Lex Gillespie’s joyous and singular celebration of the Jewish love affair with Latin music and dance, set in New York, Havana, Miami Beach, and the Catskill Mountains. During the 1950s, free-spirited, mostly Jewish dancers from New York City fell head over heels for the mambo, the hot dance from Cuba that became a worldwide sensation. Their love for Latin rhythms earned them a nickname: the “mamboniks.” Now retired, yet still dancing in Florida, a (more...)
Film: Los amores cobardes
NHCC-Newsletter-November-2-307 pm In August, the Center continues its partnership with Instituto Cervantes to present films in the organization’s current Espacio femenino series. Instituto Cervantes has offered this series since 2010, presenting contemporary work by women filmmakers and focusing on women’s concerns and issues. When Eva, a young, independent cartoonist, returns home to Málaga for the summer holidays to spend time with her mother and her best friend Gema, she unexpectedly encounters an old boyfriend. She has had no contact with Rubén since he broke off their relationship, (more...)
Film: A palabra xusta/La palabra justa
NHCC-Newsletter-November-2-307 pm In August, the Center continues its partnership with Instituto Cervantes to present films in the organization’s current Espacio femenino series. Instituto Cervantes has offered this series since 2010, presenting contemporary work by women filmmakers and focusing on women’s concerns and issues. A palabra xusta is a game invented by a teacher for her students, in which each child writes, in one word, what s/he has learned in that day’s class. The answers are put on the board, and everyone chooses the best—the right word. In (more...)
Film: La Nana/The Maid
NHCC-Newsletter-November-2-306 pm Please note that a pre-screening conversation about the film, led by Dr. Elizabeth Hutchison, will begin at this time. The film will be shown at 7 pm Raquel has worked as a live-in, uniformed maid for a well-to-do family in Santiago, Chile for over 20 years. Now 41, she is part of the family in some ways, as emotional attachments—both positive and negative—attest, but in others remains apart, even expendable. When her employers decide that she needs help and hire an additional maid, Raquel feels (more...)
¡Cine Magnífico!: 7th Annual Latino Film Festival: Black is Beltza
NHCC-Newsletter-November-2-30Opening Film / NM Premiere 6 pm Opening Reception, 8 pm Film Screening and Q & A with Fermin Muguruza, Director ¡Cine Magnífico! celebrates Spanish and Latin American culture through presentation of some of the best of modern cinema in a weekend-long program, featuring work by first-time filmmakers and established masters alike. The subject matter runs the gamut from comedies, action, romances and documentary films, to dramatic masterpieces. Some of the riskiest and most innovative films of recent years will be included. October 1965. Pamplona’s troupe of (more...)
¡Cine Magnífico!: 7th Annual Latino Film Festival
¡Cine Magnífico! celebrates Spanish and Latin American culture through presentation of some of the best of modern cinema in a weekend-long program, featuring work by first-time filmmakers and established masters alike. The subject matter runs the gamut from comedies, action, romances and documentary films, to dramatic masterpieces. Some of the riskiest and most innovative films of recent years will be included. ¡Cine Magnífico! is organized by Instituto Cervantes, the National Hispanic Cultural Center and UNM Latin American & Iberian Institute so as to be at the forefront (more...)